I felt embarrassed for them. Their team played below subpar. Brazilian football at its best is fluid, beautiful, elegant and simply fun to watch. None of those qualities were evident Tuesday night.
Germany routed them but it had less to do with German efficiency than with Brazilian arrogance. They played the wrong kind of game and got soundly thrashed. This is not the way one plays football on the international level. Even the Americans did far better against Germany than Brazil did in its semi-final this week.
In my opinion, this is one of the great prevailing myths of the sport. Sorry, but this hasn't been true (in any consistent way) since the 1986 World Cup. With most Brazilians going to play for all those big clubs in Europe, the "Brazilian Way" got coached right out of them. And damn quickly, too. Sad.